Event Description

Title: 'Understanding general anaesthesia: why loss of consciousness is interesting'
Abstract: General anaesthetics have been in use for almost 200 years, but there remains a surprising lack of understanding on how these diverse drugs really work. All general anaesthetics essentially rob us of our most precious asset, our consciousness, thereby allowing surgery to proceed without pain or awareness. Yet, most animals are also rendered unresponsive by general anaesthetics, often at exactly the same concentrations that produce unconsciousness in humans. This suggests conserved target mechanisms that have little to do with that precious human asset, and points instead to a way of understanding fundamental processes common to all animal brains. In this talk, I will be presenting some new clues on how general anaesthetics work, and will attempt to reconcile our recent findings with more established theories in the field. Iíll also be discussing our results in the larger context of the evolution of sleep.